Rogues as a ranged/melee hybrid class.

So, I was reading the 5.2 PTR forums, or more specifically, the seven or eight threads on the first page about rogues being overpowered. And upon reading one thread's title ("Rogues, Ranged or Melee class?"), I had a sudden thought.

What if rogues were a partially ranged class?
Or rather, what if one of the three rogue specs was ranged in nature?

As it stands, Hunters are the only physical ranged class in the game, so there's certainly room for a second class in that niche, especially since a ranged rogue wouldn't be after agility mail.

Rogues lack any feature that really makes us unique.
Druids and Hunters both have stealth, and other classes have temporary invisibility states. So we aren't really the "stealth" class, especially considering how rather lack-luster our openers currently are. Monks are a more agile, quick-moving, leather-wearing fighter than we are, so we don't have that going for us anymore. Other classes have stuns that rival ours, or have bleeds, or can apply poisons.

But there is no physical class that is a ranged/melee hybrid.

I think the spec that would be replaced is combat.

Frankly, combat doesn't bring anything interesting to the table, (Except BF, which Blizzard seems determined to nerf). The other two specs play almost the exactly the same as combat, but with more interesting mechanics (shadow dance, blindside procs), and more unique elements (poisons, bleeds).

Combat would be changed into a brand new spec (I have no idea what the name would be), that features ranged auto-attack, shuriken throw as the main CP generator, something akin to Deadly throw replacing Evis (without the silence effect), a ranged stun to replace kidney shot, etc. BF could even remain, and cause your throws to hit a second nearby target.

Rather than actually suggesting this be a change, I'm more curious what the rogue community thinks of theoretical shift of such a magnitude.

Are you fine with rogue specs/talents as they are now?
Would a revamp like this be going too far? Leaving the roots of the class too much?
If not specifically this idea, do you think that a revamp of this magnitude is necessary to fix the class?
Would you miss combat?
Do you hate the idea of also being a ranged class?

You tried too hard and now your post is shit. Never try too hard, the gamble isn't worth it. -Boubouille

I personally would love to love to see a ranged spec and have secretly been hoping that they would remake one of the hunter's spec into melee, kinda like the amazons in Diablo 2. However any possibility of that happening is gone now that they've gotten rid of range weapon slots.

However I don't think getting rid of combat is the way to go. There are still a lot of people who prefer to play Combat whether for aesthetic reasons or its simplistic playstyle. Getting rid of combat would ruin weapon itemization for agi weapons as well. IMO keep combat and roll assassination and sub into one spec.

Combat is the by far funniest specc as a Rogue, if Combat wasn't in the game, I would prolly quit the game, after 8 loyal years.

A step away from Vanilla WoW is a bad step, and a step toward the past is a good one. The game is loosing subscribers cause the GMs want new fashionable things, when they should focus on what matters. More tiers, more raids, more bosses, less epics, harder epics etc is a good thing. Changing classes, revamping stuff etc, is a really bad thing.

Combat is the most unchanged specc in my opinion, there has not been much changes in the rotation for years, which is a good thing.

What I would recommend instead, is to remove Deadly Throw and Shuriken Toss altogether and give us something decent instead. Rogue is "the" melee class of the game after all. It's the only non-hybrid melee class. If people are bored with Rogue, then re-roll another class, please don't ruin it for us who love Rogue as of now.

I don't think morphin rogues into a range class would be good - still people is not playing the class exactly because every other class passed though a revamp that made it more appealing; rogues are like this by 8 years and people simply gets bored of spamming SS to death.

Why? Because you like the spec that hasn't changed at all for years yet the top rogue complaint is how stale and boring we've become and haven't been changed for years? I'm not saying the spec has to be combat, in fact I feel it should be assassination that is the throwing spec. Have combat about swords, axes etc and have Subtlety be about daggers and assassination about throwing ninja stars and being a ranged killer.

rogues are like this by 8 years and people simply gets bored of spamming SS to death.

The only thing I'm bored of is losing my cool toys.

"Here's a spec with good target switch and strong burst. Ok wait, new design! Target swap is the worst out of AAAAAALLLLLLL classes, and your burst is shit compared to half of dps specs, and no better than the other half. In compensation, have your flurry actually be good, and you can switch targets again! Also your single target is now bad. Ok wait, new design! Just like that, but without the blade flurry!"

I'm bored of THAT, sure.

GC said they didn't want a range spec because all rogues would spec it. Says a lot about how raids view us.

There would be no amount of balance that wouldn't pigeonhole us into one or the other.

If melee does more damage, you're stuck with melee. If they do extra, you're going ranged because ranged is less of a liability.

All of a sudden monks and druids would be very displeased with us. Keep rogues the only pure melee dps class for Pete's sake. Let us have SOMETHING. Heck, if anything, next expansion should also be a pure melee dps to balance out ranged Mages and Warlocks.

I'd like to see a Gun-Kata-esque (If you havent watched Equilibrium go do it now ^^) Dual Wielding Handgun spec. Something that incorporates Melee gun attacks as well as being very adept at ranged attacks where needed. I do agree that the class should retain it's melee roots though but having a cool flashy gun/sword/dagger combo (Devil May Cry?) would be awesome. The one thing I think Rogues always lacked is flair and even though they have no magic abilities I think this can be easily compensated by having some kickass acrobatic moves.

Whilst I think this is a bad idea to make a ranged hybridy class.. to be honest... 5.2 rogues arent far off. if you spec for Deadly throw and Shuriken..

youll have a low cost spammable which makes your auto attacks ranged. and generates CP allowing you to keep up slice/recup... youll be able to step in and hit rupture when needed. and you can spam deadly throw for other occasions.

Then I guess you'll want to give hunters melee dps spec, like they had in beta?

Does not sound very good to me. Rogues are rogues, hunters are hunters. They are unique and recognisable. No real reason to mix them up.

Just level a hunter alt.

Agreed. If rogues were given a ranged spec, hunters should be given a melee spec... But, in general, the idea of "ranged rogues" sounds lame. I can't imagine it happen. And why should blizzard also do it? I mean, if rogues got the ranged spec why would you play hunter? (Here i sense that you wanted rogues to have bows/guns, not throw'ish weapons?) the rogue class, with spells and etc would be epic with a bow.. Stealth, vanish etc - which would piss some hunters of I think.

I think people see what Blizzard has done to the other classes over the years (especially for MoP) and feel left out because rogues have gotten much less attention. But in my opinion, that is a very good thing.

When people pick up a class and decide they enjoy playing it, nothing is worse than having the developers come along with idle hands and completely fuck it over (ie: Death Knights in 4.0). The only reason rogues lack features that make them unique is because Blizzard has taken those features and spread them like butter across the board and given them to everyone.

While I admire your ability to think outside the box and you do have some pretty interesting ideas, I rolled a rogue for one specific reason: pure-melee dps and combat spec was my first love.

Of course, if Blizzard wanted to give everyone a fourth spec and made ours a ranged spec, I suppose I wouldn't be completely opposed to the idea. But for now, I am happy to say that the class I fell in love with years ago is still enjoyable for me to play today. If anything, I would have preferred less changes to the original design, but what can you do?

Also, I think Verain hit the nail on the head regarding a ranged-rogue spec:

Originally Posted by Verain

GC said they didn't want a range spec because all rogues would spec it. Says a lot about how raids view us.

There would be no amount of balance that wouldn't pigeonhole us into one or the other.

If melee does more damage, you're stuck with melee. If they do extra, you're going ranged because ranged is less of a liability.

GC said they didn't want a range spec because all rogues would spec it. Says a lot about how raids view us.

A very solid point I hadn't really considered, thank you.

I'd like to see a Gun-Kata-esque (If you havent watched Equilibrium go do it now ^^) Dual Wielding Handgun spec. Something that incorporates Melee gun attacks as well as being very adept at ranged attacks where needed. I do agree that the class should retain it's melee roots though but having a cool flashy gun/sword/dagger combo (Devil May Cry?) would be awesome.

Handguns in that sense don't really fit in the warcraft environment. Technology is generally either very basic, steampunk-esque, or magical in nature. I don't really think a quick attacking steampunk or flintlock-style handgun works very well, and rogues don't really fit with magic enough to use some sort of crazy magical handgun.

I'd rather see a fourth spec as a tank spec than a ranged.

While I can understand the logic of an evasion based tank, I can't really imagine rogues standing in front of something dangerous and happily keeping its attention on themselves while other people damage it. Rogues are still theoretically a stealth class, so tanking is a bit silly.

Agreed. If rogues were given a ranged spec, hunters should be given a melee spec... But, in general, the idea of "ranged rogues" sounds lame. I can't imagine it happen. And why should blizzard also do it? I mean, if rogues got the ranged spec why would you play hunter? (Here i sense that you wanted rogues to have bows/guns, not throw'ish weapons?) the rogue class, with spells and etc would be epic with a bow.. Stealth, vanish etc - which would piss some hunters of I think.

Then I guess you'll want to give hunters melee dps spec, like they had in beta?

Does not sound very good to me. Rogues are rogues, hunters are hunters. They are unique and recognisable. No real reason to mix them up.

Just level a hunter alt.

Forgive me if I wasn't clear enough about this, a throwing weapon user is exactly what I meant when I suggested the spec; A sort of cloak and dagger ranged assassin. For lack of a better example, think V for Vendetta. My intention was not to somehow cross hunters and rogues. I agree that hunters are hunters (that is, a ranger-type, an outdoorsman advanced in the art of tracking and hunting with stealth in the sense that one must be stealthy to catch prey unaware) and rogues are rogues (a lightly armored thief-type assassin, utilizing poisons, bleeds, and underhanded/hit-and-run tactics). However I don't think it's unreasonable for a thief to be adept in the art of throwing weapons, especially since we already incorporate them into our abilities, a rogue as a throwing weapon user who dodges away from enemies picking them off makes sense. A melee hunter makes less sense, it's hard to imagine that someone so entirely focused on ranged weapons, traps, tracking, etc... would somehow also be able to stand toe-to-toe with a warrior/paladin/rogue/feral druid in melee combat.

I felt that rogues (still basically using the same ability, but from a distance) would be different enough from the feeling of hunter to be viable, perhaps I was wrong?

They are unique and recognisable.

I agree with rogues being recognizable, I think it's more because they've been around since the beginning. People somehow still think of us as the cheap stunlock/control class, despite other classes having more reliable stuns that don't sacrifice damage or require build up, and better, shorter cooldown control.